정체성의 도구로서의 신체장식과 현대 아트 주얼리 연구

Abstract

This study examines the art jewellers’ practices which reflect contemporary identity based on body art as identity tools. The study explores means of body adornments from the past to consider use of the body as a material to art jewellery and background of art jewellery affected by both social and artistic circumstances as well as Body art since the 1960s. Based on this, the aim of this study is to research contemporary art jewellery exploring modern identity using body adornments. Throughout history, human beings have constructed their identity in skin adornment, such as painting, tattoo and piercing as well as body modification including skull deformation, Chinese foot binding and corsets, most of all represented basic human desires. Beyond that, the body modification is particularly used in Body art, which was originated from Performance art movement, and affected radical art jewellers, in contributing to artists’ use of human bodies as art materials. Additionally, contemporary consumerism and developing medical technology makes it possible to reconstruct body parts, and art jewellers are inspired by the fact that people can recreate their own identities. Tiffany Parbs uses skin as aesthetic material for artistic expressions, inspired by the contemporary medical procedure such as Botox injection. Lauren Kalman extends the adorned body parts to the whole body as imagined traumatic skin diseases, and adorned the unconventional body parts. Parbs and Kalman demonstrate the painful process of beautifying the body parts through pictures and videos, allowing viewers to recognize physical limits to themselves. Christoph Zellweger develops jewellery as a prosthesis inspired by plastic surgery and expresses contemporary reconstructive identity adopting surgical techniques. As a result, this research pursues to extend the possibilities of contemporary art jewellery which reflects modern reconstructive human identities with the new technology.